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Fellowship is a very Christian word. We use it all the time for all sorts of things. We use it for organisations. The CUs are part of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. And for doctors there’s the Christian Medical Fellowship. Many local churches even call themselves fellowships. Now, fellowship exists and is of great importance in all those places, yet sometimes we mistakenly think of the structures and organisations as fellowship. But that’s not what the Bible means.

We also talk about fellowship a lot in terms of activities. There are fellowship meetings, times of fellowship after the service, and fellowship over tea and coffee. But again, the temptation can be for us to equate fellowship with the activity. We can end up thinking of fellowship simply as talking to people or drinking tea. Yet, in the Bible, fellowship isn’t something we do, but rather something we have.

Today I just want to direct you elsewhere to read a fantastic blog series that Glen Scrivener wrote recently on the question of, if Jesus has really atoned for all my sins, past, present and future, then why be good?

The early Apostolics loved the Trinity and they loved the doctrine of the Trinity. They even said it was 'the most essential article of the Christian faith' and that ‘it is absolutely necessary to believe in the Trinity in the Divine Essence before we can fully grasp and appreciate the other doctrines of our faith.' Just look at where they put the Trinity in the Tenets. Unlike most other evangelical statements of faith (but like the ancient creeds), the Trinity stands in first place. (Most evangelical statements of faith start with the authority of Scripture, which doesn't make it into the Tenets until number 8, when they have moved on to consider the Church). And for the early Apostolics, the Trinity wasn't just a doctrine to be checked off the list to ensure you were 'sound', but rather it was of vital importance to all of the Christian faith and the Christian life.

The two quotes at the beginning both come from Thomas Rees, one of the early Welsh apostles in the Apostolic Church. Pastor Rees also emphasised how only the doctrine of the Trinity could make sense of a God who is love:

For if God were not a Trinity in unity, on whom could His love have been lavished, when there was no-one eternally existent but only Himself as a solitary unit? … Therefore to deny the distinction of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the eternal Being of God is to make the love of God dependent on things created, and that would contradict the self-existence and the self-sufficiency of God. Origen, one of the early Christian fathers, argues like this: 'If God had ever existed in simple unity and solitary grandeur apart from some object upon which from all eternity to pour forth His love, His love, His Fatherhood and His very omnipotence would have been added in time, and there would have been a time when He was not perfect.' … But we are not left in the dark as to upon whom the Father lavished His love. For in John xvii : 24 we find Jesus declaring: ‘Father … Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.’

‘The emphasis on daily personal walk means that a central motivation for attendance at worship is the desire to be admonished toward a godly lifestyle. The typical evangelical sermon takes up the challenge to embody this concern. Although the specific topic may vary, the point the evangelical preacher makes each Sunday is the same: “If you are a believer, holy conduct must characterize your life not only Sunday morning but also Monday through Saturday. What is heard in the Sunday worship service must be translated into action throughout the week. If this is not the case, then your faith merely fades into a useless ‘churchianity.’”’

I came across this description of typical American evangelical preaching while reading Grenz for some academic work. I’d like to say that things are different here in Britain, but, in reality, often they’re not. Even here it seems that often enough the epitome of sermon responses is to feel ‘challenged’. So let me just quickly point out a few wee problems with the type of preaching Grenz describes.

1. There’s only so much challenging you can take before it becomes a wearying burden.

2. If the theme every Sunday is my conduct, then Christianity becomes all about what I do.

3. If the point of going to church is to be challenged for the week ahead, then the church isn’t much more than a weekly pep rally for MY walk.

4. You have to think about when you can invite your unbelieving friends; if most sermons are directed at Christians to get them to live better, then how do you know when you can bring someone along to hear the gospel?

This week it’s been Easter, so what else could we have for today’s Wednesday Word other than the Resurrection. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in simply defending the historicity of Christ’s resurrection. I’m not going to do that though. I’m just going to start from the fact that the Bible proclaims that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the third day. And so what I want to look at today are three implications of Christ’s Resurrection for us (some theology of the resurrection, if you will).

And, as well as that, I've made you a video. It's not amazing, but it is the most technological thing I've ever managed to do. And it's got some diagrams too. So, if you can only see a black box above, click through to the blog for the video. Otherwise, the text version is below.

Raised for our Justification

Rom. 4:25 says that Jesus was ‘raised for our justification’. So our salvation rests on Christ’s resurrection. But didn’t Jesus die for our sins? Yes, He did (and the first part of Rom. 4:25 even says that), but He didn’t stay dead. The resurrection was more than simply Jesus coming back to life. He had been hung on a tree as one cursed – taking the curse of our sin. But the Resurrection declares powerfully that He is the perfectly obedient, righteous One who has made an end to the curse through His death. Through the Resurrection Jesus is vindicated. It’s His justification! And we are justified in Him. As God declares Jesus’ righteousness through His resurrection, so we too who are raised to newness of life with Him are declared righteous in Him.

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.’

Dickens might have been writing about life before the French Revolution, but I’m writing about our lives. About my life. Best and worst, wisdom and foolishness, belief and incredulity, Light and Darkness, hope and despair, everything ahead and nothing ahead, Heaven and the other place (and this time I don’t mean Oxford!) can all seem to mingle together at times in our lives. Something happens to make it the worst of times and so we foolishly focus our attention on the worst. Instead of trusting in Christ in the situation, we turn our gaze to our disaster. We despair. We see nothing ahead. And it all feels much more like the other place than it does like Heaven.

A few weeks ago I was writing a lot about the nature of grace. My whole point was that grace isn’t some THING that we get from God, but rather, grace is Christ and Him crucified. So getting grace means getting Jesus. Now that’s all very well when it comes to salvation, but what about when it comes to ministry? Surely grace for ministry is a THING we get from God. Well, no. If it was a different thing, God would use a different word. The Bible could have talked about power for ministry or something else like that, but instead it talks about grace (Rom. 1:5; 1 Cor. 3:10; 1 Cor. 15:10; Eph. 3:7; 1 Pet. 4:10-11). Just as we’re saved by grace, we serve by grace. And it’s the same grace which saves and which ministers: Jesus.

And that’s the way the Bible talks about Him too. Not only is Jesus the Saviour, but He’s also the Minister. He is the apostle (Heb. 3:1), the prophet (Acts 3:22-23), the evangelist (e.g. Luke 4:18,43 where the verb is used of Jesus), the pastor (1 Peter 2:25; 5:4; Rev. 7:17) and the teacher (e.g. Matt. 26:18). So apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers only minister as Christ ministers through them. And not only does He minister through them, but He’s also the substance of that ministry; they’re Word ministries and He is the Word. Christ is the minister and Christ is the ministry. So it’s impossible to minister without Him.

When we minister through grace, we minister through Jesus. When we minister grace, we minister Jesus. So ministry by grace is ministry in union with Christ.